Name: HPE MSA
Rating: 9.3 (4 reviews)
Author: Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE)

Help Desk

Web and Video Conferencing

Customer Support

Batch Management Software

Feature Management

Innovation Management

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM)

Development

Classroom Management

Education

Business Intelligence (BI)

Calendar

Collaboration

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

Enterprise Content Management

Statistical Analysis

Visitor Management

Enterprise

Accounting

Corporate Performance Management (CPM)

Digital Banking

Finance and Accounting

ACA Compliance

Applicant Tracking

Corporate Learning Management

HR Management

Leadership Development

Payroll

Talent Intelligence

Talent Management

Workforce Analytics

Workforce Management

Human Resources

Access Gateways

Archiving

Cloud Storage

Configuration Management Databases

Disk Cloning

Email Encryption

Fraud Detection

Infrastructure-as-a-Service

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)

Log Management

Network Performance Monitoring

Office Migration and Repair

SIP Trunking

Software Asset Management

Telecom Expense Management (TEM)

Vendor Risk Management

Virtual Data Room

Web Scraping

WiFi Hotspot

Information Technology

A/B Testing

Ad Serving & Retargeting

All-in-One Marketing

Blogging

Content Management

Ecommerce Personalization

Email Marketing

Enterprise Marketing Management

Market Intelligence

Market Research

Marketing Automation

Social Media Management

Survey & Forms Building

Video Marketing

Web Analytics

Marketing

Job Site Management

Project Management

Waste Management

Writing and Proofreading Tools

Professional Services

Customer Onboarding

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Sales Performance Management

Sales

Fleet Management

Membership Management

Municipal

Rental Property Management

Roofing

Warranty Management

Vertical-Specific

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HPE SimpliVity

HPE MSA (modular smart array), formerly HP StorageWorks MSA, is a series of storage appliances, from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, a product line built for a modest budget, available as the HPE MSA 2052 hybrid flash array, the HPE MSA 2500 SAN storage appliance, and the MSA 1050 SAN storage.

HPE MSA

A Modular Storage Area Network (or Modular SAN) infrastructure emphasizes a scalable, flexible architecture that can be set up with relative ease and simplicity, and at affordable pricing, without making overly great sacrifices in performance.

Modular Storage Area Network (SAN)

HPE MSA Best Practice for Controller Firmware Update

Updating HPE MSA Storage drive firmware demo

Likelihood to Recommend

Likelihood to Renew

At HP, we don't just believe in the power of technology, we believe in the power of people when technology works for you.  We believe in applying new thinking and ideas to improve the way our customers live and work. 
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SnapServer NAS

Synology DiskStation

HPE Primera

Director, Network Engineer

HPE MSA 2022-02-24 18:39:28

Plixer Scrutinizer

Microsoft Exchange

Adobe Acrobat

IT Project Manager

HP StorageWorks MSA 2019-01-03 10:21:00

Later Social

HP StorageWorks MSA 2018-02-13 15:24:51

TrustRadius is a technology and business research firm based in Austin, Texas. The company is known as a review platform for verified B2B technology and software reviews through a proprietary algorithm and human verification.

TrustRadius

End result

Flash storage

Options available

Firmware upgrades

Form factor

Major issues

Better options

Quick to help

Simple implementation

Vmware esxi

Support is excellent

Troubleshooting issues

Quick and effective

Functions well

Disaster recovery

Storage capacity

Home

Modular Storage Area Network (SAN) Solutions

We utilize the HPE MSA as the SAN of our VMWare ESXI infrastructure in both our main office in NY and our disaster recovery site in New Jersey. We utilize the fiber channel configuration of the MSA, both connected thru a fiber channel switch and also directly connect to the MSA. The business problem it addresses is a full redundant SAN solution for our infrastructure. Ensuring business-critical applications remain operational if there are any hardware issues with the MSA. This is achieved with the dual controller configuration as well as having multiple host bus adapters. Giving us redundancy for controller failures and HBA failures.

The HPE MSA gives us the flexibility to determine the RAID configuration of the array so we can maximize its storage capacity.
The HPE MSA's dual controller configuration allows us to upgrade the system's firmware without incurring downtime in our infrastructure. We can upgrade each controller on the array without affecting the LUNS provisioned to our VMWare ESXi environment.
With the flexibility of the configuration, we can utilize either a direct connect setup, utilizing a fabric switch, iSCSI, or a direct SAS connection.
HPE's support is excellent. Troubleshooting issues and part replacements are easy and engineers are readily available to work on issues.

Collecting support logs from the HPE MSA could be better. It takes a long time to collect logs, sometimes so long your login times out.
The HPE MSA could have a better management GUI. The layout of the menu, having the navigation buttons all around the edges is odd. It would have been better if it was in just one location.
The drive type and capacity options available can be better between the small form factor and the large form factor. We would have liked better options in the future.

A positive ROI of the HPE MSA is the ability to configure the RAID set of the array to our requirements. We can maximize the storage capacity of the array improving our ROI.
The flexibility of configuring the HPE MSA is another positive ROI. In our production environment, we can use a fiber channel switch while in our DR office none of that redundancy is required so we directly connected that MSA to our VMWare servers.
HPE's support is another positive ROI. We have been able to connect with support right away to troubleshoot an issue. Part replacement is also excellent, ensuring our HPE MSA is not in a degraded state for long.
The HPE MSA's architecture is rock solid, there have been minimal issues with the hardware, besides the rare time that an SFP has gone bad and needed to be replaced. We've had no issues that brought down the MSA.

SnapServer NAS, Synology DiskStation, HPE Primera, HPE Nimble Storage

We are using the MSA for disaster recovery. It holds all of our replication VMs and gives us the ability, with the help of VM software, to roll over to the replication cluster in order to bring our systems back up in the event of a disaster at our primary data center.

Functions well as a disaster recovery cluster repository
Since the space is a spinning disk, it is inexpensive
All of our VMs are stored in a mass storage repository on the system, but we could carve out specific LUNs if needed.

Since it is a spinning disk, it isn't as fast as flash storage

We have only been using the MSA for a year so we haven't seen our ROI yet, but we were able to get the same amount of storage on the MSA as Nimble for half the cost.
The MSA is an upgrade to what we previously had.
It is easy to administrate and you can set it and forget it.

Adobe Acrobat DC, Microsoft Exchange, Scrutinizer

Create a Mass repository for the storage instead of having to build out individual LUNs.

As a temporary production solution in the event of a disaster.

HP Storageworks MSA provides our company with affordable, flexible and reliable storage for our medium size systems. HP support and quality are good, and this decision has proven to be a good one for our users. Availability, scalability, and affordability are higher and reliability has been excellent.

Reliability - Very reliable. Great uptime and few issues.
Affordability - Great price/quality balance.
Scaleability, aimed at SMEs this serves our 400 server, 4000 user base, 50 TB storage well.
Support - HP quick and effective to sort out issues.

Firmware upgrades. We have had major issues on two occasions, causing extended downtime. HP was quick to help and resolve, but I am not sure why our simple implementation caused an issue that should have been picked up by testing prior to release. Once was bad, twice painful. The end result is that we purchased a unit solely to test firmware upgrades on, not really great for us!
Support life span. Units go end of life support after around 4 years, a little too short for us.

Increased up time. Better user experience.
Good value for money. ROI high.
Peace of mind. Just knowing that you rely on the solution to meet storage performance needs is great.

HPE MSA

Overview

What is HPE MSA?